The curious registry history of Jaqueline Antoinettte (Schitt) Malarkey
ARCHIVAL RESEARCH NOTE
Subject: Jaqueline Antoinettte (Schitt) Malarkey
Archive ID: MAL-0003
Born: 1886
Married: 1904
Died: 1937
Parents: Daniel Rosevelt Schitt [SCH-0075] and Jaqueline Antoinettte (Chitty) Schitt [SCH-0048]
Husband: Elmer Malarkey
Child: Tevia Malarkey
A Schitt Filed Among the Malarkeys
Among the family records maintained by the Crock O. Schitt Historical Archives, few classifications have caused more unnecessary pencil work than that assigned to Jaqueline Antoinettte (Schitt) Malarkey [MAL-0003].
The difficulty is straightforward.
Jaqueline was born in 1886 to Daniel Rosevelt Schitt and Jaqueline Antoinettte (Chitty) Schitt. Available family records consistently identify her as their biological daughter. She was therefore born a Schitt and remained one until her marriage to Elmer Malarkey in 1904.
Under the classification practices subsequently adopted by the Archives, her permanent family identifier would ordinarily have been assigned from the Schitt register.
It was not.
She appears in the Master Family Register as MAL-0003.
No surviving record has yet satisfactorily explained why.
The 1904 Marriage
The earliest record presently known to connect Jaqueline’s childhood identity with her later adult identity is associated with her 1904 marriage to Elmer Malarkey.
The marriage itself appears to have attracted little contemporary concern. A Schitt marrying a Malarkey was apparently regarded as sufficiently ordinary that no surviving account suggests anyone considered the union genealogically troublesome.
This would prove optimistic.
Records created after the marriage consistently identify her with the Malarkey household. References to Elmer, their son Tevia, and Jaqueline herself survive principally among materials associated with the Malarkey family.
The Schitt records, by comparison, preserve her parentage and birth but provide considerably less assistance in following her adult life.
At some point, the documentary trail changed families even though the woman did not.
Two Sets of Records
The problem appears to have developed because the Schitt and Malarkey materials were not originally maintained as a single genealogical collection.
The Schitt records establish:
Daniel Rosevelt Schitt + Jaqueline Antoinettte (Chitty) Schitt → daughter Jaqueline, born 1886.
The Malarkey records establish:
Elmer Malarkey + Jaqueline Antoinettte Malarkey → son Tevia Malarkey.
The 1904 marriage record provides the bridge:
Jaqueline Antoinettte Schitt → Jaqueline Antoinettte Malarkey.
Today the relationship appears obvious.
It was apparently less obvious to whoever filed the paperwork.
How MAL-0003 Happened
The precise sequence cannot presently be reconstructed.
Evidence suggests that Jaqueline entered the surviving compiled records primarily through material associated with the Malarkey family. When those records were organized, she was identified by the name under which most of her adult documentation survived:
Jaqueline Antoinettte Malarkey.
She was consequently assigned a Malarkey-series identifier:
MAL-0003.
Only through later reconciliation of the Schitt and Malarkey family records was MAL-0003 firmly connected with the daughter born to SCH-0048 and SCH-0075 in 1886.
By then, however, MAL-0003 was already MAL-0003.
Why the Archives Did Not Correct It
Changing the identifier would make the family tree appear cleaner.
It would also make the archival record less accurate.
Archive identifiers serve not merely as descriptions of ancestry but as persistent references connecting records, notes, exhibits, source materials, and previous research. Once MAL-0003 had become associated with Jaqueline throughout the surviving Malarkey material, replacing it with a newly created SCH-series number would obscure the history of those records and potentially create two apparent individuals where only one existed.
The Archives therefore retained the original designation.
Jaqueline remains:
MAL-0003 — Jaqueline Antoinettte (Schitt) Malarkey
despite the undisputed inconvenience that she was born a Schitt.
The Unidentified Original Source
One question remains unresolved.
The Archives have not located the specific document, ledger, family record, or earlier compilation upon which the original MAL-0003 classification was based.
Several explanations remain possible.
The initial compiler may have indexed married women according to their married surnames. The earliest material available to that compiler may have originated entirely with the Malarkey family. A Schitt-side record connecting Jaqueline’s birth and marriage may already have been missing. The relationship may simply have gone unnoticed until later reconciliation.
There is also the possibility that somebody knew exactly what they were doing.
No evidence presently supports that possibility.
Neither, regrettably, does the surviving filing system entirely exclude it.
A Later Pencil Notation
One undated working notation associated with reconciliation of the two family groups has been preserved in transcription:
“Born Schitt. Married Malarkey. Same Jaqueline. Leave under Malarkey.”
The author is unidentified.
No explanation follows.
Whether the notation represents an archival decision, an instruction to a later compiler, or simple exhaustion has not been determined.
The Archives have honored it.
Current Archival Determination
The Crock O. Schitt Historical Archives presently considers the following facts sufficiently supported:
Jaqueline Antoinettte was born a Schitt in 1886.
She was the biological daughter of Daniel Rosevelt Schitt [SCH-0075] and Jaqueline Antoinettte (Chitty) Schitt [SCH-0048].
She married Elmer Malarkey in 1904.
She subsequently appears principally in records associated with the Malarkey family.
She is the mother of Tevia Malarkey.
Her historical Archive identifier is MAL-0003.
The reason she was originally assigned that identifier remains uncertain.
Until evidence establishes otherwise, the designation will remain unchanged.
Archivist’s Note
Genealogical records occasionally preserve their own history along with that of the people they document.
MAL-0003 appears to be one of those cases.
Correcting the identifier would remove the discrepancy.
It would not explain it.
The Archives considers the latter more useful.
— Crock O. Schitt Historical Archives
Evidence, not answers.